


unwritten,

by romanoff



Series: snippets/WIPs [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Healing, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Best Rehab in the World, Wakanda, Winter Solider Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:15:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15604101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanoff/pseuds/romanoff
Summary: In the direct aftermath of Civil War, Tony is taken by HYDRA and shaped into their new asset.In Wakanda, he recovers.





	unwritten,

**Author's Note:**

> When I'm bored/lack inspiration, I upload all my WIPS and let people select which ones they like best. So, let me know if you like!

He wakes up.  
   
Sudden, a jolt, like being doused in cold water. He has the strangest feeling of relief, like rousing from a bad dream; the knowledge that it wasn’t real, and now your safe.  
   
Safe.  
   
He does _feel_ safe, strangely. He looks at his hands. They’re scarred, and calloused, with short, bitten nails. Does he bite his nails? He has the sudden realisation that he doesn’t know if he bites his nails. And he doesn’t know where any of the scars on his hands came from. And in fact, he doesn’t even recognise the hands, it’s like looking at a stranger’s, and so piece by piece that feeling of safety falls away until he realises he doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t recognise his hands, and, most fucking crucially, he _doesn’t know his own name._  
  
He sits up. He’s lying on some kind of slab, in a – lab? He touches his face; a nose, two ears, a beard. He’s wearing a hospital gown, probably. His feet are bare. He has two legs, two arms, all his fingers and toes. He swings his legs onto the floor, stands; they’re firm. He’s healthy, whoever the fuck he is.  
   
“You’re awake,” someone says, “good. We were wondering if you were ever going to get up.”  
   
He blinks. “Where am I?” He croaks, and learns another thing about himself: his voice sounds like shit. “What is this place? Who am I? Who are you?”  
   
“One at a time,” the – girl, Stark decides – says. She has a light, lilting accent, her hair pulled back in tight braids. “Too much will overpower you, I think. That’s what the doctor has said.”  
   
“The doctor? Is this a hospital?”  
   
“It can be,” she says, smiling like she’s said something funny.  
   
“Sorry,” he says, tersely, “you’re going to have to give me more than that. Where am I? _Who_ am I? Why can’t I remember? What have you done – “  
   
“Your name is Stark.”  
   
 _Stark._ “Stark?”  
   
“Yes. You are American. You are a – “ she looks like she’s searching for the right word, “businessman.”  
   
“I’m a businessman?”  
   
“Yes. A rich, American, businessman.”  
   
“Then why am I here? What kind of – is this a ransom? A hostage situation?”  
   
“It’s a rescue. We found you, half-dead, Stark. We brought you here to heal you. It’s been two weeks.”  
   
“Two – weeks,” Stark says, flatly. “It’s been two whole weeks. And you’re telling me I was close to dead? What kind of doctors do you have here?”  
   
“Good ones.”  
   
“Where is this place?”  
   
“Africa.”  
   
“ _Where_ in Africa?” Stark hisses, feeling himself get increasingly irritated.  
   
“Kenya.”  
   
“Kenya?”  
   
“Yes. You are in Kenya.”  
   
She might be lying. Stark gets the sense that she’s lying. But he doesn’t know enough, or have enough energy, to fight her on it. “Where did you find me?” He asks, turning. The lab is all glass and metal, bright slaps of colour. It’s familiar, but unfamiliar. Stark doesn’t know.  
   
A long pause. “You were taken,” she says, slowly. “Kidnapped. You escaped, barely. We found you.”  
   
“And why can’t I remember?”  
   
“Your kidnappers. They… did something. So you wouldn’t remember.”  
   
Stark catches his reflection in a wall of glass. He’s of average height. He’s slim, but toned. He looks about – twenty-five? “How old am I?” He asks distractedly, pressing his hand to the glass, frowning.  
   
“Ah. About – fifty.”  
   
“Fifty?” Stark scoffs. “Fuck me, who’s my dermatologist?”  
   
“They took your memory but they made you younger, as well. Stronger.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
The girl doesn’t respond. “We are going to help you,” she says. “You will not be blissfully unknowing forever. Memories will start to return, and they will confuse you. We will take you somewhere safe.”  
   
“Am I not safe here?” Stark asks, turning back. “What’s wrong with here?”  
   
“We do not want to cause an international incident. Don’t worry. You won’t be alone.”  
   
“Wait,” Stark blurts. “Hold on. Just – bear with me. Don’t I have – some kind of family? Or friends? Or people who are looking for me?”  
   
“There are people looking for you,” the girl says, evasively.  
   
“Don’t I have a home? Can’t you send me there?”  
   
“No.”  
   
“No?!”  
   
“Like I said, we are trying to avoid an international incident.”  
   
“I – wait. What’s your name?”  
   
“Shuri.”  
   
“Siri? Like the iPhone?”  
   
“No, Shuri,” the girl snaps, mildly annoyed. “We have discussed enough.”  
   
“No! Hold on! I have so many questions – “  
   
“You should sleep,” Shuri says, turning away. “When you wake up, you will be somewhere else, but it will be safe. You have our word.”  
   
“No,” Stark says again, insists. “No, you have to – “ his eyes are growing heavy “ – explain to me – “ he’s sinking to the floor “ – I don’t know… who I am,” he manages, and then he’s asleep.  
   
   
And so, he wakes up.  
   
It’s warm. He’s lying on a soft bed, staring up at a ceiling. He can hear laughter, distant, trickling.  
   
The floor is dirt. Dusty. The door is curtain. The little shack is made with wood, and keeps out the worst of the sun’s glare. Wincing, he steps out, sandals keeping the hot earth off of the soles of his feet.  
   
There are children, two women, and a man with one arm giving piggy-back rides. The women are clapping their hands, the children are screaming with delight. The man smiles, gives chase, and the children follow, laughing, little feet turning up dust. “Hey,” Stark calls, waving his hand, trying to catch their attention. “Hey! You! Top-knot!”  
   
The man with one arm and his hair in a bun turns. He sets down the child, much to the dismay of the others. “My turn!” One of them says, “You promised!”  
   
“Later,” Top-knot says, sloping towards Stark. He jerks his head, as if to motion for him to follow, so he does.  
   
They sit by the little stream. Top-knot washes dust and sweat from his face with the cold, cool water, and Stark follows suit. Top-knot drinks; so does Stark. Eventually, the man leans back, sits cross-legged on the ground. “You have questions?” He says.  
   
“Yes,” Stark begs, “please.”  
   
“You know where you are?”  
   
“Uh – Kenya, I think.”  
   
“Yeah,” Top-knot agrees, “yeah, this is – Kenya.”  
   
“I asked if I could go home. They said no. I’m American. You’re American, too. Why are we here? Is this some kind of – “  
   
“Retreat.”  
   
“Huh?”  
   
“It’s like – a retreat. You know. Like – what do you call it? Rehab? Like rehab.”  
   
“In Kenya?! With – sandals, and a fucking pallet for a bed?”  
   
“If the bed is uncomfortable, we can get you a new one.”  
   
“No! No the bed is – the girl said I’d been kidnapped. And hurt, or something, she said – she said I was _fifty._ Do I look fifty?”  
   
The man tears up a few errant blades of grass, rips them apart. “I don’t know,” he mumbles, “I’m not a good judge of – “  
   
“Look at me. How old do I look? Be honest.”  
   
Top-knot looks up. He has blue eyes, Stark notes. Dark hair, a creased face, like he’s spent a lot of time laughing, or screaming. He’s tanned with the sun. “You look young,” he concedes. “We think they did something to you. Made you younger, more… healthy.”  
   
“Why?” Stark presses, feeling like they’re finally getting somewhere. “Why would they do that? I’m a businessman, right? I’m – “ he feels light-headed, feels a laugh coming on, “I don’t even know what business,” he wheezes.  
   
“They, uh. Probably wanted you for your brain. You’re smart, I think. I’m told you’re smart.”  
   
“You know me?”  
   
“Not really. We have some mutual friends.”  
   
“Who?” Stark demands, sitting up on his knees. “Tell me who. I have friends? Do I have family? I must have some people, no kids, no wife, husband, mom or dad or anything? _Tell me!”_  
  
The man looks uncomfortable. “You don’t have any family,” he mutters. “At least, not that I know of. No close family, at least.”  
   
Stark feels slightly crushed. “No one?”  
   
“But you have friends,” Top-knot picks up, “I swear you do. They care for you, and they’re worried about you, and they know you’re here. They agree this is the best place for you, to help you, until everything… blows over.”  
   
“How can I believe you?” Stark asks, suspicious. “How can I trust anything you say? Why should I?”  
   
“You shouldn’t. You don’t have to,” Top-knot says, simply. “Some days, I still struggle to even trust myself.”  
   
   
He learns that the man’s name is Bucky. He’s from New York, which, incidentally, is where Stark is from. “Well, you were born there, I think,” he says awkwardly. “You’ve lived all over the place. But I reckon the place you’re born is the place you’re from, so. Let’s go with New York.”  
   
He’s an ex-soldier. “Is that why you’re here? Some kind of PTSD thing?”  
   
“Sure,” Bucky says, “that’s why.”  
   
“Is there a treatment plan? Medication? What am I supposed to do all day?”  
   
“You can sit. Think. Swim, if you like, relax by the river. Some days, we visit the border village for supplies.”  
   
Stark’s fingers itch for something more.  
   
   
They tell him to drink.  
   
“Before you go to sleep,” Bucky says. “It’ll help you rest. Stop any… bad dreams.”  
   
“Do I have bad dreams?”  
   
“You will,” Bucky assures him, darkly.  
   
And he does.  
   
Flashes of red, and blue. There’s always pain. There’s always something worse to come. He knows he sees people, in these dreams, but when he wakes they’re forgotten. Sand, falling through his fingers.  
   
At night, he cries out.  
   
“What do you dream of?” Bucky asks him.  
   
“I don’t know,” Stark murmurs. His head hurts. Maybe it’s the sun.  
   
“If you have trouble sleeping, they can give you more syrup.”  
   
“Maple?”  
   
Bucky smiles. He looks a lot nicer when he smiles. “No, for sleep.”  
   
“Will it stop the dreams?”  
   
“It’ll mean you don’t remember them in the morning.”  
   
Stark decides he’s already forgotten enough.  
   
   
He spends his days crafting. “Baskets!” Bucky says, with more enthusiasm than a grown man should have for arts and crafts. “You weave them, and then we give them to the village. They use them to carry fruits, and if it’s done properly, water.”  
   
“Fascinating,” Stark grouches.  
   
Bucky is laborious. He shows him how to fold the palm leaves, one over another, tying knots, until they come to form something resembling a basket. “You see?” He says. “Now you try.”  
   
Stark picks it up quick. There’s something else he learns about himself: he’s good with his hands, scarred as they are.  
   
   
He has his first attack not long after he arrives at the little village by the stream. He’s sitting under a tree, head tipped back against the trunk, when he feels a strange pressure on the back of his head. It irritates him, so he goes to the stream and drinks. The pressure doesn’t lessen. When he turns, he catches the glare of the sun, and the pain spikes, sharp and unrelenting across the left side of his head.  
   
He cries out. Bucky is sitting a way off, surrounded by children, showing them how to shape palm fronds into a fan. The pain is so blinding, so obliterating, he lies there, half curled on his side, hands clutching at his hair and hidden by a rock, until one of the women stumbles across him. She rolls him onto his back and covers his eyes with the palm of her hand. “Buck-ee,” she calls, tongue elongating the name, stretching it like sugar molasses.  
   
He carries him back into his shack, lays him on pallet. He’s sweating, shaking, pain turning his head into rock, weighing him against the bed. He’s scared he’s dying, delirious. “Am I dying?” He asks, feverish. “Am I going to die?”  
   
One of the women soaks a cloth in water, drapes it across his eyes, his brow. “Shh,” they say, smoothing hair back from his head. Bucky takes over while they fetch more water to dribble into his mouth. He soothes him. He drags the cloth over his brow, wipes the sweat from underneath his chin. “Easy,” he says, voice rough, American, Brooklyn. It sounds like home, wherever that is.  
   
When the women return, they give him something. A syringe. They tell him to count back from ten, and inject his thigh. His last thought is, _how pedestrian._  
   
   
They fly him to the lab he started in. The girl, Shuri, and some doctors run tests. They can’t find anything wrong with him. They fly him back to the village, this time with medication for pain.  
   
   
“So who’s in charge around here anyway?”  
   
Bucky stalls. “What do you mean?”  
   
Stark waves his hands. “Here. Who’s in charge? It’s not the girl, is it? Shuri? This is a retreat, right? Who runs it?”  
   
“Uh,” Bucky raises his eyebrows, slumps. “What do you know about Kenya?”  
   
“Not much.”  
   
“Do you know how it’s run? Who the president is?”  
   
“I… have no idea.” Stark has good general knowledge, but some facts still elude him. The result of whatever his kidnappers did.  
   
“It’s a monarchy,” Bucky says, confidently. “A royal family, passed down to the first born of each generation.”  
   
“Really?”  
   
“Sure.”  
   
“In – wait, what year is it?”  
   
“2018.”  
   
“A monarchy like that, in 2018?”  
   
“You got a problem?”  
   
“Yeah, it’s stupid. What if the firstborn is a lousy, stupid idiot? What then?”  
   
“Then there can be a challenger.”  
   
“How?”  
   
“Uh – trial by combat, I think.”  
   
Stark stares at him, unimpressed. “Right,” he says, “so what about diplomacy? Intelligence? Warmth? You’re telling me, the shit son of a king can be overthrown in a punching match by another shit son, and that’s the grounds for a constitutional – “  
   
“I think it’s worked for them so far.”  
   
“ – and what about if you’re a woman? You’re not going to be able to beat some beefcake in battle if he’s 6’7 and built like a brick shithouse – “  
   
“You’re overthinking.”  
   
“It’s a stupid idea,” Stark grumbles.  
   
“This place is pretty cut-off. I think – for the longest time, all they needed was a strong leader. Maybe that’ll change now.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“Nothing,” Bucky fills in, quickly. “It’s nothing.”  
   
   
At night, he gives Stark his syrup. He drinks, easily. “Thank you,” he says, letting it warm him, from his head to his toes. Like floating on a cloud.  
   
It keeps the worst of the nightmares at bay.  
   
   
But not all of them.  
   
Metal; steel. Blood-on-concrete. Snippets, slashes. He feels so scared.  
   
Red and blue and red and blue and red and blue.  
   
A man named Tony.  
   
   
He asks Bucky in the morning, the two of them washing downstream. “I had a dream last night,” he begins.  
   
“Oh yeah?” Bucky asks, too casual to really be casual.  
   
“I think – I remember something.”  
   
“You do?”  
   
“A name. Tony.”  
   
“You think you know him?”  
   
Stark shrugs. “I don’t know. Yeah, I must. I guess I’ll find out.”  
   
   
Bucky starts to test him. At the hottest point of the day, when sun is high in the sky, they’ll sit in Bucky’s shack on the cool dirt floor and look at pictures, Bucky a teacher, Stark a student.  
   
“Here,” he says, holding up a photograph. “You know this man?”  
   
Stark bats a fly away from his face, distracted. The man is old, white hair, trim, rather severe looking, like he’s got a particularly thick stick stuck up his ass. “No,” he says.  
   
“Okay. What do you think this man does?”  
   
Stark sighs. “Military, maybe. Maybe some kind of… business man?”  
   
“Close. He was military, and then he was a politician.”  
   
“Oh. Okay.” Stark is bored. He would rather go look at the armoured rhinos.  
   
“He’s dead now,” Bucky continues. “He was killed.”  
   
“That’s a shame. Did he have family?”  
   
“One daughter.”  
   
“Aw. That’s sad.”  
   
“Actually, he was assassinated.”  
   
“Oh yeah?”  
   
“Yeah. While giving a speech. It was pretty brutal.”  
   
“That’s – bad. Is he American?”  
   
“He was. He was the Secretary of State.”  
   
“Was he good?”  
   
“Debatable.”  
   
A beat. “What’s the significance?” Stark asks.  
   
“You knew him.”  
   
“I did?!”  
   
“Yeah. You worked together.”  
   
“Sorry. I don’t – recognise him. At all.”  
   
“No worries,” Bucky says, easily. Carefree.  
   
   
He watches him bathe. Even with one arm he’s lithe, fast, smooth. Stark wonders why he’s hairless, and then realises with a jolt that he is, too.  
   
Bucky’s shoulders are strong. He washes his hair, dips his head back into the water, then wrings it dry, piles it in a bun on his head. Tanned, and strong.  
   
Stark discovers something else about himself, that day.  
   
   
Bucky pushes him. “Fight me,” he says, teasing.  
   
Stark stares. “Are you crazy?”  
   
“Probably. C’mon, Stark. Fight me.”  
   
It’s night. Freshly washed, sitting by the fire. The women from the village have brought fresh fruit and meat, and promise to show them both how to hunt in the coming days. The children are gone. It’s just them.  
   
“No. I don’t beat up crippled men.”  
   
“How can you be sure?” He laughs. “You don’t know anything about yourself.”  
   
“This is true,” Stark concedes, but doesn’t agree. It makes him uneasy, the thought of putting Bucky’s throat under his hands. “But if wouldn’t be a fair fight.”  
   
“I’m stronger than I look.”  
   
“I don’t doubt it. And you look very strong, by the way.”  
   
“Oh, you’ve noticed?”  
   
“I notice everything. I mean, I notice a lot. Not everything, obviously.”  
   
“What else have you noticed?”  
   
“About what?”  
   
“This place. Me.”  
   
“Well,” Stark sighs, “you’re not a native.”  
   
Bucky’s laugh is deep, thundering. “You don’t say!” He exclaims.  
   
“You’re – an old soldier. You saw battle, definitely.”  
   
“I did.”  
   
“You…” Stark sighs. “Okay. I’m stumped. Honestly, I’ve just been staring at your muscles for the past three weeks, how about that?”  
   
“You have?”  
   
“Sure. I’m a man, aren’t I? And I’m lonely. You get out there and start dousing yourself in water and swishing your hair like a shampoo commercial, what am I supposed to do?”  
   
Bucky snorts. “You’re funny, Stark.”  
There. He’s learnt something else about himself. He’s funny.  
   
Haha.  
   
   
Bucky knows more than he’s letting on. Stark is sure of it.  
   
He doesn’t understand what they’re trying to hide.  
   
   
“Drink,” Bucky tells him.  
   
It’s not enough. Stark dreams that he’s falling. He dreams of fire. He dreams of dark.  
   
He dreams of snow.  
   
He wakes up, shaking, sweating. Fumbling, he throws off the loose, thin blanket, stumbles out into the night. _Bucky,_ he’s thinking, is all he’s thinking, desperate not to think of anything else. _Bucky, Bucky, Bucky._  
   
“Are you in pain?” He asks, urgently, sliding from his pallet. “Stark, talk to me. Are you in pain? Do you need medication?”  
   
“Make me forget,” Stark chatters. “Take it back, take it back. Make me forget, I don’t want to remember anymore. I don’t want to.”  
   
Bucky lies him on the bed. He pours drink, violet, syrup, warmed over the fire. “Are you going to take it away?” Stark croaks. “I don’t want to remember. Please don’t make me.”  
   
“Shh,” Bucky soothes. He holds Stark’s head, tips the rough stone cup to his lips. “Breathe,” he urges. “Forget.”  
   
   
Stark does.  
   
   
When he wakes up, he can’t place where he is. He’s closer to the floor. His head hurts, striking, sharp. He groans.  
   
“Shh,” Bucky is saying. “You had an attack in the night. We brought you here to keep an eye on you.”  
   
“Pills,” Tony breathes, barely able to open his eyes. Bucky holds up his head, rests the pills on his tongue, tells him to drink them down.  
   
He feels déjà vu.  
   
   
It takes him two days to recover. He sweats like he has a fever, moans against the pain, does what he can to block it out. Bucky strokes his hair. He blows cool air on his face. He covers his eyes with a towel.  
   
After, when he’s recovered, the women from the village make good on their promise to teach them how to hunt. They show Tony how to craft short, primitive spears, nothing like steeled, glowing lances they carry on their backs. He picks it up, quick. He learns that he’s good with his hands, scarred as they are.  
   
Wait.  
   
Has he thought that before?  
   
   
Bucky tests him.  
   
“Here,” he says, holding up the picture. A headshot, like a passport. A dark man with hair clipped close to his head, about fifty if Tony had to age him. “Do you recognise this person?”  
   
Stark snorts. “C’mon,” he laughs, “Buck. You know I don’t.”  
   
“What kind of man do you think he is?”  
   
Stark blows out air. “Fuck, I don’t know. Uh, a good one? He looks straight-laced. Sensible.”  
   
“If he had a job, what job would it be?”  
   
“Military,” Stark says, automatically. He doesn’t know why.  
   
“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, “he looks it.”  
   
“So go on,” Stark says, jerking his chin. “This is the part you tell me who he is.”  
   
“A pilot.”  
   
“Do I know him?”  
   
“You do. You know him well.”  
   
That makes Stark sad. “I’m sorry I can’t remember,” he admits.  
   
“Not your fault,” Barnes says easily.  
   
“Does he know I’m here?”  
   
“He does. And he’s waiting for you, when you get better.”  
   
   
At night, they lie by the stream and look up at the sky.  
   
It unsettles Stark, but he doesn’t know why. Beside him, Bucky sighs. “It’s nice,” he murmurs, “it’s nice that you can see the stars.”  
   
And you can. Hundreds, thousands of them, a sky set alight. Stark remembers that you can’t see stars, not really, in big cities. “Do you not see them in New York?” He asks.  
   
“Huh? Me? Oh – sure. No, not really.”  
   
Stark can’t remember if he’s ever seen stars, or hasn’t. “Do you think we ever met? Before?”  
   
“What do you mean?”  
   
Stark rolls onto his side, props up his head on his hand. “Y’know,” he smiles. “In New York. Home. Wherever.” He talks about it like it’s a concept, not a real thing.  
   
“The world’s a big place, Stark.”  
   
“Yeah but – maybe. Maybe we did.”  
   
“Why’d you say that?” Buck asks, flatly.  
   
Tony sighs. He’s getting irritated. “I don’t know. Just – wouldn’t it be cool? If we had? I’m just – whatever. It’s fine.”  
   
He lies back down, and feels bizarrely embarrassed. He may look twenty-five, but he’s not, and he shouldn’t be so fucking childish.  
   
“I upset you,” Bucky says after a while, voice soft. “I’m sorry.”  
   
“It’s alright,” Tony replies, stiffly.  
   
“I get it, Stark. I get what it’s like to want to – have something to hold onto. A piece of home.”  
   
“Yeah. Sure.”  
   
“I mean it. More than you know.”  
   
It’s _fine._ I was just – imagining. Daydreaming. You don’t have to make this into a bigger deal than it is.”  
   
“We did meet,” Bucky says. “Before.”  
   
Tony turns. “You knew me?”  
   
“Not exactly. I told you, Stark, we have mutual friends – “  
   
“But you knew me?” Stark presses, grasping onto this one, tenuous link. “Did we talk? What am I like? Was I nice? Am I funny? What did I say?” He pushes closer, gripping Bucky’s arm. “Who am I? What was I like? Tell me, what kind of person am I, I need to know – “  
   
“Enough,” Bucky says, roughly pulling him away. “That’s enough, I’ve said enough.”  
   
“No,” Stark begs, “you haven’t. Please. You don’t know what it’s like, living with – a hole in your head – “  
   
“I really do.”  
   
“Then tell me,” he pleads. “I need to know. It’s so – it’s so lonely. Just tell me. What did I do? Did I do something?”  
   
“You’re lonely?” Bucky asks, interrupting. “You have me, don’t you?”  
   
Stark shakes his head. “I don’t – have anyone,” he says. “Sure, I have you now but – I don’t have a past. I don’t have a future. And you’re telling me you _knew me,_ that you spoke to me, this man I used to be, and then – “  
   
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Bucky mutters, standing. “I’m sorry, Stark.”  
   
“Tell me,” Stark follows him back to his shack, grasping at his arm. “Please, just a little bit. When’s my birthday. My friends, what are their names. What kind of business was I even involved with, the shoes I was wearing, please, just _something –_ “  
   
Bucky draws the curtain. An invisible barrier. Stark could press on, but there’s a rule, unwritten, that when the curtain is drawn that’s it. “Please,” Stark pleads, quietly. “I know you can hear me. Please, Bucky.”  
   
He doesn’t respond.  
   
   
That night, he tosses and turns. “I can’t sleep,” he says, eventually, standing at Bucky’s door. “I’m sorry. I can’t sleep.”  
   
Bucky tells him to drink. Stark does. In the morning, he doesn’t remember.  
   
   
At night, they lie by the stream and look up at the sky.  
   
It unsettles Stark, but he doesn’t know why. Beside him, Bucky sighs. “It’s nice,” he murmurs, “it’s nice that you can see the stars.”  
   
Stark frowns. He feels unsure, confused. Has this happened before? But then Bucky turns to him and smiles, and his fears are waylaid. He’d remember that smile. He’d remember it anywhere.  
   
“You want to hear a story?” Bucky asks, turning back to look at the sky.  
   
“I’m not a kid.”  
   
“Sure, but do you want to hear it?”  
   
“Obviously,” Stark mumbles, and flies when he hears Bucky’s laugh.  
   
“Okay,” he says, “bear with me. I might get some of the finer points wrong. But it’s a cool story, one of my favourites.”  
   
He talks about New York, and the monsters that came through a portal in the sky. “Yeah right,” Stark snorts.  
   
“It’s true. And the men in charge didn’t know what to do. And so, to stop the monsters from taking over the whole planet, they decided they would annihilate New York with a bomb.”  
   
“And did they?” Stark asks, dryly. Hey, maybe that’s why he can’t remember shit: nuclear fallout.  
   
“No. There was a man, and when he saw what they planned to do, he carried the bomb on his back.”  
   
“Gnarly, dude.”  
   
“He flew it through the portal in the sky, and he destroyed the monsters, and he fell back down to earth.”  
   
“Does he die?”  
   
“No. He lived.”  
   
“Cool. Not quite Hansel and Gretel, but – cool story, I guess.”  
   
Bucky pillows his head on his hands. “I think it’s a great story,” he says. “Sometimes I think about how scary it must have been. To be out there, up there in the sky, watching the earth disappear. Thinking he was going to die.”  
   
“Maybe you should get out more, Buck.”  
   
Bucky smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees, “maybe.”  
   
   
Another picture.  
   
A woman. Hair pressed neatly, tied in a bun low on her nape, pearls on her neck. The picture has been torn in half, but Stark can just about make out where she’s hugging a small child, just their arm visible.  
   
“Do you know this woman?” Bucky asks him.  
   
A word comes, unbidden. “Mom,” he says.  
   
Bucky stares. “What?”  
   
Stark jerks his chin. “She’s a mom. Look, she’s hugging a kid.”  
   
Bucky looks back at the picture. “Oh,” he says, “right, sure. Yeah, I guess she is.”  
   
   
There’s a man in Bucky’s tent.  
   
Stark had stumbled there in the night, aching. The fire had been lit, casting shadows against the curtain door. _He’s awake,_ Stark had thought blearily, stones cutting his feet. He’s forgotten his sandals in haste, although the soles of his feet have worn into something tougher, with a hard skin exterior.  
   
I’m glad, he hears the man say. I’d hate to think –  
   
Yeah, Bucky replies. He’s happy. I mean, as far as you can tell, you know?  
   
No one knows, the man says, voice lower. None of them know it was him.  
   
What are they saying, Bucky asks, do they think he’s dead?  
   
“We tell them we’re looking,” the man says, and his voice is closer, suddenly, his shadow standing, framed by the fire. “It doesn’t matter what they think. When he’s better, he’s better, and we’ll say we found him.”  
   
He’s going to draw the curtain and see that Stark has been listening. Stark gets there first; he pulls it back, accusatory, stands in the doorway, bathed in the light of the fire. “I couldn’t sleep,” he says, as if that’s an explanation.  
   
The man – the Stranger – is wearing a dark recon suit, supple leather boots. He’s blond, or at least, he should be; his hair is dirty, like it hasn’t been washed in a while, and his beard is shaggy, a good few months growth. It looks wrong, but Stark doesn’t know why.  
   
“Tony,” the Stranger breathes, like a prayer.  
   
Stark stares, narrows his eyes. “Who is he?” It’s rare you see another white man in these parts. A friend of Bucky’s? But why keep him a secret? He talks with an American accent – is he another patient? Another soldier, come to join their private little paradise? The thought irritates him. This place is for Stark, and Bucky, no one else. There’s no room for him here.  
   
Bucky isn’t saying anything. He’s just looking from the Stranger, to Stark, to the Stranger, to Stark.  
   
“I’m – “ the Stranger starts, then falters. He doesn’t seem to have words. “Don’t you know me?” He asks, desperate, confused.  
   
Stark frowns. “Should I? Buck, who is this guy?”  
   
“Steve,” Bucky says, voice low, and terse, like he’s irritated, “don’t.”  
   
 _Steve._ Stark rolls the name over in his mind. _Steve, Steve, Steve._  
   
He thinks of snow.  
   
He doesn’t like him here. Steve grabs his wrist, and Stark snatches it back. “Don’t touch me,” he snaps. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”  
   
Steve steps back. He shuts his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, and means it. “I – sorry. Stark. I’m just passing through, you won’t see me again. I – “  
   
He holds his breath, looks at Stark like he wants to cry. It’s pitying. Men like Steve shouldn’t look like that, Stark thinks.  
   
“I’m glad you’re doing well,” Steve seems to decide is the right thing to say. “Buck,” he nods, and leaves.  
   
 _Buck._ Buck? What, are they friends? “Who was he?” Stark demands.  
   
“He was no one,” Bucky says tiredly, already heating up the purple liquid over the fire. “C’mere. Sit. You can sleep here tonight.”  
   
Stark sits in the spot that Steve The Stranger had occupied, crosses his legs. “Is he your friend?”  
   
Bucky seems to debate whether or not to lie. “He is,” he says finally.  
   
“He called me Tony.”  
   
“Drink,” Bucky tells him, holding out the stone cup.  
   
Stark bats it away, careful not to be too aggressive and spill any. “No,” he says, “explain first.”  
   
Bucky puts down the cup. “He thought you were someone else.”  
   
“Lie.”  
   
“That’s not a lie.”  
   
“I heard you talking. You said they think he’s dead. Think who’s dead? Who were you talking about?” A long pause. “Is it me? Am I Tony?”  
   
“You’re not ready,” Bucky mutters.  
   
“Not ready? Not ready for what?”  
   
“The truth.”  
   
“I am,” Stark insists. “Tell me. I won’t leave until you tell me.”  
   
So Bucky does.  
   
After, he asks, do you want to forget?  
   
Yes, Tony tells him, please let me forget.  
   
   
Someone has moved his bed into Bucky’s shack. He doesn’t remember who, or when. “Why don’t I remember?” He asks.  
   
“Because of what they did to you,” Bucky tells him. “They hurt your memory.”  
   
That makes sense. Tony believes him.  
   
   
“Fight me,” Bucky says. He’s joking, but also not joking.  
   
“I don’t beat up crippled men,” Stark tells him. That’s half the truth. He doesn’t trust his body not to embarrass him if he gets close.  
   
Bucky pushes him, lightly. “Go on,” he teases. “You know you want to. You get bored looking at sheep and weaving baskets, admit it.”  
   
“Knock it off.”  
   
Bucky pushes him again, harder. This time, he stumbles. “Fight me,” he says, and Stark twists.  
   
He swings a punch, a Bucky blocks. He didn’t expect him to be that fast. Barnes grabs his wrist, and Stark trips him. Bucky is strong; somehow, Stark is stronger.  
   
“Stay down,” he grits, straddling his waist. “I’m better than you, old man.”  
   
“Old man?” Bucky wheezes, grinning. “What makes you say that?”  
   
He carries momentum in his legs, lifts them and wraps them round Stark’s neck, pushes him down into the dirt. He hits his head, hard. Impact. _Oof,_ is his first thought, coughing the dust. And then –  
   
Like this, his face is pressed close to Bucky’s groin. He’s suddenly, intimately aware of that fact. And so is Bucky. He loosens, unwraps his legs, lets him go. “You win,” he says quickly, not meeting his eye. “Wanted to see if you were stronger than me. You are. Go figure.”  
   
“Wait,” Stark says, scrambling up. “No fair. Let’s go again. I’ll beat you properly this time.”  
   
“No,” Bucky says, shortly. “No, that’s enough for today.”  
   
   
Stark washes in the stream where he knows Bucky can see him.  
   
   
At night, he sleeps in the tent he and Bucky and share. It’s small enough that if they stretch out their arms, their hands will meet, crossed above the fire.  
   
He listens to the soft burr of his breath, the even rise and fall. Sometimes, he murmurs in his sleep.  
   
 _This is home,_ Stark thinks. He couldn’t be anywhere else.  
   
   
They’re going to have a visitor, Bucky says.  
   
A visitor? Stark asks.  
   
The King, Bucky tells him. The king of – Kenya.  
   
He’s an imposing man, with a deceptively soft face. Not really what Stark expected. He asks if he’s supposed to bow, and the man laughs, claps him on the back. “Walk with me,” he says, and Stark does.  
   
“Are you happy here?” He asks. His voice is lilting, pleasant. He crosses his hands behind his back.  
   
“Sure,” Stark says.  
   
“I hear you have pain. My sister has given you treatment.”  
   
 _Sister._ “Oh! Your sister. Shuri,” Stark remembers, “the girl who won’t – “ He almost says, _shut up,_ then thinks better of it. “Clever girl,” he finishes, weakly, under the King’s baleful eye.  
   
“Quite. Are you kept busy here, Stark? Are you ever bored? Or lonely?”  
   
“No,” Starks says, “never.”  
   
“Sergeant Barnes is good company, I take it.”  
   
 _Sergeant Barnes._ “Who’s that?” Stark asks.  
   
The king stares at him, blinks. “Apologies,” he corrects, “I meant to say Bucky.”  
   
“Sergeant Barnes?”  
   
“Is a moniker. Barnes is his last name, and he was once a soldier.”  
   
It upsets Stark that he didn’t know Bucky’s last name, or that Bucky never thought to tell him. It makes him think. “Do I have a last name?” He asks.  
   
The king looks at him, considering. “Of course you do,” he says, after a while. “But you don’t need it here. When you’re ready, you’ll know.”  
   
For some reason, Stark believes him.  
   
   
They sit by the stream.  
   
Tonight, Bucky has cooked. He’d lit a fire, and caught the fish himself, laid them out and fried them with oil and spices. They’d eaten with their hands, and licked the juices from their fingers. For dessert, Bucky shares a pack of sugared candies, crystallised fruits that are both sweet and bitter on the tongue.  
   
Their knees touch.  
   
“Tell me another story,” Stark asks.  
   
“About?”  
   
“Anything,” he breathes, dreamily. He rests his head on Bucky’s shoulder, and doesn’t think twice. “Home.”  
   
Bucky turns his head, so his chin brushes Tony’s hair. “Home?” He murmurs.  
   
“Like the man who flew through the hole in the sky,” Tony murmurs, eyes closing. “What happened to him after?”  
   
“After? He… he lived happily ever after,” Bucky tells him. “That’s how stories go.”  
   
Tony looks up. They’re close; their noses touch. “Then tell me how he lived happy ever after,” he says, quietly. Bucky’s breath is warm. His eyes aren’t blue, Stark realises. They’re grey, almost translucent. He has a sudden, desperate urge to hold his face in his hands and stare at those eyes until –  
   
Bucky kisses him. Bucky makes the first move. Eyes half-shut, his lips ghost Stark’s, and then deeper. Stark wraps his hands in Bucky’s shirt, he straddles him. Bucky’s arm comes up to wrap across his waist.  
   
And then:  
   
“No,” Bucky is saying, against his lips. “No, no, stop this.”  
   
Stark pulls back, hurt. “Don’t you want it?” He asks.  
   
“You don’t want this.”  
   
“But I do,” Stark insists, “I have. Since the start, I swear – “  
   
“You _don’t,”_ Bucky says, hushed, and somehow so, so sad. “Trust me, Stark: you don’t, okay? You don’t – remember. And you don’t even know me, not really.”  
   
“You’re Bucky Barnes,” Stark tells him, like that somehow makes up for all the little things he doesn’t know. “Sargent Bucky Barnes. You’re from New York. You were a soldier. You’re here, now, and so am I, and I want you – “  
   
“You don’t.”  
   
“I do! Bucky,” Stark scrambles onto his knees. “Please. Not again. Just – you want this, I want this, I know you do. What’s stopping us? No one here would care – “  
   
“It’s not about that,” Bucky says, standing. “Just – forget it, okay? Pretend it didn’t happen. I’m going to bed.”  
   
It hurts. Has Stark ever been hurt like this before? This searing, heady mix of embarrassment and sharp, stinging pain? In the belly? Like someone has twisted his guts and crushed his lungs?  
   
“No!” Stark shouts, grabbing his arm. “No! Stop it! You did it first!” He states, plaintive, like a child. “You kissed _me._ Please don’t go. Let’s just talk, maybe – “  
   
Bucky twists, and suddenly he’s close, within spitting distance. “You don’t understand,” he says, fierce, cruel. “Don’t you get it? You don’t _remember._ You don’t _know._ You don’t know me, you don’t know what you want, you can’t even remember your own fucking name.”  
   
Stark stares.  
   
Bucky shoves him, pushes him away. “Leave me alone,” he says, flatly. “I am not your fucking prince. I’m a monster, Stark, you get it?”  
   
“I just – “  
   
“ _Shut. Up.”_  
   
Shut up. Stark steps back, or tries to. One of his knees give out, like it can’t support him, like suddenly he’s weak, so he stumbles, slightly, holding up his hands, backing away. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Shut up, Stark. Just shut up.  
   
“S-sorry,” Stark manages, feeling sick, feeling – snow. Blood on his hands, and snow. Absently, he wipes his palms against his chest, leaves bloody streaks on his clothes, but it doesn’t disappear. He wants to wash them in the stream, but it would taint it, taint what they have, the crystal water.  
   
Shut up, Stark.  
   
He shuts up. He’ll do whatever they ask him to do, although he thinks he used to be brave, have courage, be clever. He’s none of that now. He’s a puppet. He’s a toy. A thing-to-be-used.  
   
They strip him and wash him like he’s a great beast, lock his ankles to the floor, his wrists to the ceiling, spray him down and gag him with a mask. They leave him there to struggle, hours, days, until even he feels weak. _Shut up,_ Stark. He talks too much, so they gag him. This is his life now. This is life.  
   
“Stark,” Bucky says, voice raw.  
   
“Where am I?” Tony whispers. He falls.  
   
“Here,” Bucky is saying, voice rough, but Tony slaps him, scratches him away.  
   
“Don’t touch me!” He gasps, scrambling back, rocks cutting his skin. “I – I – don’t you touch me!”  
   
“I can make you forget,” Barnes tells him. “I’ve done it before.”  
   
Before. Make him forget. How many times has Tony remembered? He rocks back and forth, pulls at his hair till it bleeds. “What did they do to me?” He sobs.  
   
“You were hurt. There was a fight, and you were hurt. We didn’t know. They – took you. And thought they could make you into something to – “  
   
Tony cries out. “No!” He screams. “No! No! No! Take it out! Take it back! I don’t want – “  
   
“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, and he is, _he’s_ sorry. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. We left you. I’m sorry, Tony, we left you – “  
   
“I don’t want this,” Tony sobs, and sobs, and sobs. It’s pain, it’s fear, it’s blood-on-his-hands and the shock of a thousand volts, serum in his veins, changing him, making him not-him, and he wants – he can’t –  
   
“They wanted another soldier,” Bucky is explain, still, on and on. “They lost me. They picked you.”  
   
“I want to go home,” Tony whispers. He buries his head in his knees. “Please – Barnes – “  
   
“You can’t,” Bucky tells him, “not till you’re safe.”  
   
 _Shut up, Stark._  
   
He inches forward, hands and knees, like he was trained to do, like the dog he was trained to be. “Help me,” he croaks.  
   
“I will. I do. Everything I can.”  
   
Tony bows his head, rests it on Bucky’s lap, lets him stroke his hair and hold him. “Take it back,” he croaks, “take it away. I don’t want to remember.”  
   
“You never do,” Bucky says, sadly. “It gets easier. I promise.”  
   
“Don’t leave me,” Tony shudders. “Please don’t leave me again, I don’t want to be alone.”  
   
“You won’t,” Bucky swears.  
   
A cup held to his lips. “But I forgive you,” he swears, falling asleep. “It wasn’t you. Never you.”  
   
   
He wakes with pain.  
   
“Easy,” Bucky soothes. They’re in bed, he realises. His bed. The two of them, sharing.  
   
“What happened?” Stark croaks. His head hurts, an impossible pain. Bucky lets him rest his brow against his chest, and the touch helps. Calms him.  
   
“You had an attack. Shh, relax. Please don’t strain yourself.”  
   
“We’re in bed?” Stark mumbles.  
   
“We are,” Bucky says. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.”  
   
 _Sweetheart._ Stark is a sweetheart. He has someone.  
   
It takes longer than usual for the pain to pass. “What did I do,” Stark asks, loopy with the painkillers. “What did I do to deserve you, huh?”  
   
Bucky kisses him, a light brush of lips against his brow. “Sleep,” he says.  
   
Stark does.  
   
   
Bucky tells him he has a surprise for him. “A good one?” Stark asks.  
   
“I think so,” Bucky smiles. “It’s your birthday.”  
   
Stark frowns. “My birthday?”  
   
“Sure. Today.”  
   
“What – what day is today?”  
   
“May 20th, 2018.”  
   
“Oh. That’s – hey, that’s cool. How old am I?”  
   
“Forty-eight. But you don’t look it,” he adds, hastily. “Seriously. You look – “  
   
“Freakishly young. I get it. Is my birthday the surprise?”  
   
“The surprise is we’re going into the city to celebrate. We’re going to get dinner. And we’re gonna sleep in a hotel.”  
   
Stark hides his smile. “Like a date?” He chances to asks.  
   
Bucky wraps his arms around Stark’s waist. “Exactly like a date,” he whispers in his ear, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.  
   
   
A mix of old and new. Street hawkers peddle wares, alongside chic cafes with metal bars serving cool drinks, sleek exteriors. They’re being watched, Stark knows; he sees the women, milling among the crowds. He’s half self-conscious; they draw attention from the colour of their skin. Still, people are friendly with Bucky, and cordial to him.  
   
   
The man spits. “You are not welcome here,” he says, in English. “Industrialist pig.”  
   
Stark wipes his face, stares at his hand. What did he do? “I’m sorry,” he begins, “I don’t – remember. I don’t know what you’re talking – “  
   
“You’re a thief, a liar, and a murderer, Stark,” the man sneers. “If our King had any good sense, he would have put you down like the dog you are, it’s the only mercy for a thing like you – “  
   
   
   
“I want to go home,” Stark mutters, hot shame at the back of his throat. “I don’t want – I’m sorry. Please, can we just go home?” Back where it’s safe, and people don’t stare, or spit at him, and whisper behind their hands.  
   
“Are you sure?” Bucky asks. “We still eat. We can still visit the – “  
   
Stark feels like a child, throwing a tantrum. “No,” he begs, quietly, desperate, aware that the crowd is watching them and speaking in a language he doesn’t understand. “Please. We can – I’m sorry. I don’t want – I can’t.”  
   
Bucky’s lips form a line. He nods. They leave, hasty.  
   
   
That night, he dreams of snow.  
   
A courtyard, industrial. Thin, cracked windows and a safety door, cold concrete beneath his knees, a heavy, grey sky above his head. It’s snowing. He’s naked.  
   
He shivers. He curls up for warmth. His fingers and toes blister as he freezes, skin burning with the ice. It hurts.  
   
He wakes up, shaking. It’s warm, even warmer than usual for having Bucky at his back, arms wrapped around his waist. He’s panting, Stark realises, like he’s run a race, sweat staining his brow. He fights to free himself and swing his legs to the floor; all his fingers, all his toes. He half expected them to be frostbitten and shrivelled.  
   
“Stark?” Bucky murmurs, blearily, sitting up. “You awake?”  
   
“Bad dream,” Stark says, hoarse. “Go back to sleep.”  
   
“You’re shaking,” he whispers, pressing kisses along his neck, across his shoulder. “What’s the matter? Is it about what happened?”  
   
Stark swallows. “What did he mean?” He croaks.  
   
“Nothing. Nothing, Stark, they’re just – some of them don’t like outsiders, okay? They’re not used to having strange faces – “  
   
“This isn’t Kenya,” Stark says, flatly. “I’m not stupid. I know what I saw. Kenya doesn’t – “  
   
“Does it matter?” Bucky says, quietly.  
   
“I want to know what he meant. He called me a – thief. A thief? What did I steal?”  
   
“Nothing. Seriously,” Bucky says, straightening. “You are many things, but – you’re a not a thief. It’s just a rumour.”  
   
“A rumour? Why?”  
   
Bucky sits next to him, their knees touching. “Maybe you’re ready for some truth,” he says. “This place – this is Wakanda.”  
   
 _Wakanda._ Stark knows it, vaguely. Some African country. “Why lie?”  
   
“Wakanda is more advanced that they lead people to believe. It’s _the_ most advanced country in the world, period. They have the best minds, the best scientists, and – well, it’s complicated. They have a special metal, that fell from space, and it made them the most advanced country in the world, okay?”  
   
“What metal – “  
   
“Doesn’t matter. You – you’re an engineer,” Bucky reveals. “A businessman, but – hey, like you always say, you’re good with your hands.”  
   
Stark stares at them. “I am?”  
   
“One of the best. In fact, so good that – “ A pause. “You know Wakanda is secretive?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Well, less so, now. Lots of reasons. The new King, he wants to reach out. Help people. Before that, they were advanced enough they didn’t have to worry about being invaded, or fighting wars. They kept themselves to themselves.”  
   
“Okay.”  
   
“But things have changed. They used to be the best, but now…”  
   
“But now?”  
   
“People are catching up. I mean – you were catching up.”  
   
“Catching up how?’  
   
Bucky frowns. “I don’t know, really. I think I heard you’d found some way to synthesize – their special metal. Which is a big deal, because it means the Wakandans won’t be the only ones who can use it, anymore.”  
   
“Did I steal it? Is that why?”  
   
“No. Never. But there are some groups – some people – who I guess…” Bucky sighs. “When things change, people find ways to cope. I guess it’s easier to say you stole the metal than think that change is coming, that life won’t be the way it always was. But that’s why. That’s all it is, Stark. So please, don’t worry.”  
   
A beat. “But he didn’t just call me a thief.”  
   
“Stark.”  
   
“He called me a murderer, too. Am I a murderer?”  
   
A long silence. “Can I be honest, Stark?”  
   
“I wish you would be.”  
   
“You did kill a man. And it was murder. But you didn’t know what you were doing, and – for what it’s worth, if it’s worth anything, he wasn’t a _good_ man. He’s not worth your worry.”  
   
“I killed someone?”  
   
“Yeah,” Bucky says, softly.  
   
Stark doesn’t say anything for a long while. Then, he looks at his hands. “The, uh,” he starts, dully. “The man. The old one, the – politician. Secretary of State, you said.”  
   
“Yeah.”  
   
“You said he’d been – assassinated.”  
   
“I did.”  
   
“Did I, uh,” Stark squeezes shut his eyes, rubs his temples. “Did I – I mean – “  
   
“Did you what?” Bucky prompts, softly. “Go on. Say it.”  
   
“Did I – “ a deep breath, “did I kill him?” Stark asks, and his voice trembles, ends in a sob.  
   
He buries his head in Bucky’s neck. “Yeah, Stark,” he soothes, “you did. But it’s okay. They made you, and he was a bad man.”  
   
 _But he was a man!_ Stark wants to scream. _He had hopes, and dreams, and a daughter, and he had a life like anyone else’s, and it wasn’t Stark’s to take!_  
   
“Did I – “ Stark cries, “ – did I hurt him? Did it hurt him?”  
   
“Stark…”  
   
“What did I do?” He asks, “Did I shoot him? Stab him? What – “  
   
Bucky seems to resolve himself. “You decapitated him, Stark.”  
   
“I – I – “ Of course they think he’s a murderer. Of course they hate him, fear him. He ripped off a man’s head and can’t even remember doing it. He’s a loose cannon. He’d hurt anyone, do anything. “How did they make me?” He asks, desperate. “You said they made me, forced me, how? Why didn’t I say no?”  
   
Bucky smiles, something pitying and gentle. He takes Stark’s hand. “Okay,” he says, “let’s have a little talk. If you decide, at the end, you don’t want to remember anymore, I can take it away. I can make you forget all over again. So don’t worry, sweetheart.”  
   
“What?” Stark croaks. “What do you mean?”  
   
Bucky is rubbing his hand, comforting. He presses a kiss to Stark’s knuckles. “You were hurt,” he starts. “Stranded. Some people – terrorists – they found you, and took you, and decided to turn you into a… weapon.”  
   
“Why?” Stark rasps.  
   
“Because,” Bucky frowns. “Because they could, I guess. They thought if they took you, they could – make a point. Teach a lesson. You know, because you’re an engineer, and everyone knows you, maybe they just thought… I don’t know. They wanted you, and they took you, and that’s all we know.”  
   
“What did they do to me?” Stark asks, frail, voice a whisper.  
   
Bucky smiles kindly, comfortingly. “They tortured you,” he says. “Until you – broke, I think. Everybody has a limit. No one’s above pain. And eventually human’s just sort of… unravel. They lose touch. You lost touch, Stark. You become an open wound, susceptible to infection.”  
   
“And then they infected me?”  
   
“They did. They changed you, made you younger, and stronger. And they burnt away your memories, although not permanently; the mind always endures, Stark. They come back.”  
   
“And I killed a man.”  
   
“They made you kill him, yes. But your friends found you, after. You had remembered, or – you were trying to remember. You were so scared,” Bucky says, hushed, almost as if he’s speaking to himself. “They brought you here, and you stayed with me, for a short time. But you could still remember everything they did to you, and it haunted you. You didn’t trust me. You didn’t trust yourself.”  
   
Stark frowns, rubs at his temples. “So what happened then?”  
   
“The King, and his sister, proposed that we make you forget what happened. It’s hard to isolate memories; it takes precision, practice. They couldn’t just erase what happened, so they supressed everything. When you want to remember – when it’s time – you can, and you will. But for now…”  
   
“The drink,” Stark realises, putting it together, _finally,_ making sense. “It makes me forget.”  
   
“It does.”  
   
“How many times have I remembered?”  
   
“Many,” Bucky says, with a wry smile.  
   
“And I always – I always choose to forget?”  
   
“I think it gets easier every time, Stark.”  
   
“I want to remember,” Stark decides. “When I start to – let me. I want to remember.” After all this time, life has been at his fingertips. All he had to do was let it happen. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this, please leave a comment and subscribe! If I update, I'll do it on this work, so you'll be notified. If you enjoyed reading, please tell me what you liked/would like to see, and consider reading the other WIPs in the series to cast your vote.
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://writingromanoff.tumblr.com/)


End file.
